"What do you think?" Xie Ziyuan’s smile never ceased.

Even after Xiao Lei jumped to Su Yining’s arms and burrowed itself on her lap. It had been looking for her everywhere since she never returned last night!

Xiao Lei let out endless streams of meows. Its voice became the background noise as Su Yining stared at Xie Ziyuan, eyes wide.

"I-I... let me confirm something." She muttered.

Only then did Xiao Lei realize there was someone else besides the two of them in the room. It jumped to Xie Ziyuan’s hand, wanting to scratch him.

Su Yining’s thoughts scattered in an instant, and she instinctively called out, "Xiao Lei, don’t!"

Fortunately, nothing happened to Xie Ziyuan. He held the kitten in his hand, whose scratch was akin to a strand of fur against steel. It did nothing to him.

She heaved a sigh of relief. Meanwhile, Xiao Lei hissed at him and continued to scratch, but in the end, it felt defeated and ran back to Su Yining as if to tattle on her. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

Xie Ziyuan caught it on time, not allowing the demonic cat to ruin his conversation with her. In a few seconds, Xiao Lei disappeared.

"Where is Xiao Lei?" She asked, a little vigilant.

His lips pulled up into a thin smile. "My inner space."

"Inner space...?" She repeated, her brain short-circuited. "Can I see?"

"Of course." He readily nodded.

In a split second, the environment changed into something she was unfamiliar yet familiar at the same time. She was unfamiliar with its reality version, but she was still familiar with the layout.

She knew where the water hose, river, warehouse, and the fields of land were. It was exactly where she had arranged them. Nothing changed, just like how she had last left them.

"This..." her jaw dropped. She went to the apple tree. It had only four fruits albeit the numerous branches.

Then, the sweet potato and the rice. No one had harvested them since a few weeks ago.

Suddenly, she turned around, suddenly became nervous when facing Xie Ziyuan. "If you are really Xie Ziyuan. When did you become aware that your world is just a game?"

Even until now, she still had a hard time processing all of this. Her game character came out and became a real person!

Xie Ziyuan shook his head. "That world isn’t a game, Ningning."

She froze at the nickname. Is he teasing her because she had blurted out the game nickname she had given him? However, she didn’t correct him.

Her main focus was back to the words he just said.

"A real world and not a game?" She drew in a sharp breath. Her hand went to her forehead. She bit her lip. "Then... then... how is the base now?"

"There are some injured beastmen, but they are alright. I already rebuilt the protective shield," he explained. For some reason, he didn’t like seeing the deep worry and guilt on her face.

"It’s really a real world..." she muttered to herself. "Actually some being’s real lives and not just pixelated characters."

Her hands went to rub her temples. Fortunately, she didn’t act like a devil and played without caring about the beastmen’s lives.

Even thinking about it already gave her a massive headache. How could the game she just accidentally upgraded become like this? It was really unthinkable.

She took a seat on the ground, processing all of the information in a daze.

Xie Ziyuan didn’t disturb her. He also sat down, waiting. For someone as kind as her who even cared about game characters’ lives, he understood she must have felt complicated right now.

His mind returned to her kidnappers, and an imperceptible smile crossed his face. Soon, his expression returned to normal.

***

Meanwhile, in the police station, the police officer in charge of the interrogation was stunned when he saw that the thugs were no longer moving. They looked as if they were dead.

Carefully, he went to check and was stunned when he sensed that they were no longer breathing. No heartbeat either.

They were truly dead.

It was just too strange.

"Sir, we found something on the dead man."

Suddenly, a policeman came reporting. The person was panting, obviously in shock. "Someone had put this paper inside the man’s organ."

The dead man they were talking about was Lang Zi. When the police arrived at the scene, they only found the dead Lang Zi and the other thugs, alive and breathing but also unconscious and full of bruises.

They were aware of the current spreading disease among the people. Today, the case number somehow skyrocketed. They were absolutely overwhelmed when they received so many reports about strange people resembling zombies trying to break into their people’s homes.

However, they also received information that such odd behavior was possibly done by people who had contracted a certain disease.

They were still unsure how to shoot these people or not.

The paper was full of dark blood and looked disgusting, but surprisingly, they could still see the words on it. They were using gloves to hold the paper.

Many policemen gathered around to see what was written on it. They caught a few keywords like ’zombie’ and ’apocalypse’ which made them draw a sharp breath.

"Isn’t this just too... fictional? We are living in the real world."

Unfortunately, as soon as a police officer said that, more reports came in, like people who suddenly possessed strange appearance like growing animal-like limbs or other characteristics.

The whole world was in utter chaos.

"The zombies are real..." they suddenly paled.

"There is a method to kill zombies written on this paper too, Sir."

The conversation in the police station had nothing to do with Su Yining, who was processing the most shocking information she had ever received in her whole life.

"Okay... now I have calmed down a bit," she muttered, taking the drink that Xie Ziyuan gave her.

He had taken the water from her kitchen.

"Do you know why our worlds are connected by the game I was playing then?" She asked. It was just too absurd after all.

Xie Ziyuan nodded. "Possibly, it’s because what’s your world going to experience now."

"What do you mean?" Her heart skipped a beat. She had a bad feeling about this.

"Apocalypse."